Amazon Fulfillment Center Professional Interview

Meet Ankita Ray. Currently working as a Launch Performance Engineer at Amazon Robotics International Strategy and Launch, Ankita started at Kiva Systems (now Amazon Robotics) in 2014 as a Deployment Engineer. Following her bachelor’s in Computer Engineering from Boston University, Ankita recently started her present role and is excited by working on such a great project.

How did you end up in such an offbeat, unconventional and unusual career?

“I was always fascinated with how things worked and computers when I was young. That led me into studying computer engineering. After college, I saw this really cool role of a deployment engineer where I would work with robots! That is like a dream come true for an engineer. Not knowing much about robotics, I decided to take up the challenge, and I am really glad I did because I learned so much in these last 3.5 years about robots, about how Amazon works as a company, and about the opportunities presented at Amazon.”

How is the experience at Amazon?

“I like the innovative culture of this company – we are always working at a better solution than the one that already exists. We take the risks needed, but never at the cost of our customers, which makes it the most customer-centric company I have ever seen. It is wonderful to work with people of diverse cultural and educational background. It is enthralling to work with some very bright people and you end up learning a lot!”

“I have had the pleasure to work with several managers, which really helped me learn about different types of leadership styles. Along with Amazon’s mentorship programme, there are plenty of ways to grow within the company. My managers have been extremely supportive and I have had 1:1s with every single one of my managers on a regular basis.”

Tell us about your work

I am part of a team deploying large scale international robotic system installs for Amazon and scaling to meet Amazon’s fulfillment requirements. I have worked in several projects in the US and now moved on to international projects starting with the UK.

“My current role involves conveying information to stakeholders and really have an impact on the business. I launched several warehouses, and was really able to see the scale at which Amazon operates at and that on its own is fascinating. I also enjoyed working on ways to innovate processes or designs of existing products.”

“From the beginning, I have been involved in the launches of new Fulfilment Centers and I have launched 7 Fulfilment Centres in three countries – USA, UK, and Spain! At the moment, I am more focused on looking at how these EU buildings perform. I have to perform analysis on data and then present that data to the key stakeholders.”

What do you like about your career?

Working in such an exciting department, Ankita is proud that she has worked on a number of innovative and diverse projects. She feels that working on her first building launch has been one of the most rewarding experiences of her career so far.

“I was new to the company, but I was already leading a whole process and performing time studies and collecting data in the field. This was one of my first milestones at Amazon. I was working on a new technology and I was able to have an impact on the design based on the feedback from site. There were several challenges, which forced me to think outside the box. In Amazon it was the largest site of its kind in North America at the time, and that is when I experienced the scale at which Amazon works firsthand.”

Tell us about the work culture at Amazon

“I would say that “Dive Deep” and “Think Big” are the two leadership principles that best describe my role. Since I look to optimize performance for my buildings, I need to be able to figure out the bottlenecks and then try to come up with creative solutions to resolve those issu

Amazon has an amazing selection of engineering opportunities for the right candidates. Take a look at the current vacanciesthey are offering at an exciting time in the company’s growth.